Garcia decisions Burgos to retain WBO title

26/01/2014 09:10

Mikey Garcia (34-0) retained his WBO super-featherweight title with a unanimous decision over Juan Carlos Burgos (30-2-2) on Saturday night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.

In a fight that had many booing the lack of action. Garcia was able to consistently block most of the punches thrown by Burgos and won for the second time in the division by scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 118-110.

'In the early rounds, I was working on getting the right rhythm, timing and distance,' said Garcia.

'Once I got that, I worked on fighting at a good pace. Burgos is a big tough fighter, I expected him to go rounds and it did.'

Garcia fought at the same venue where he won his first championship last January when he won a decision from Orlando Salido for the WBO featherweight title. That fight ended in the eighth round when Garcia had a broken nose but before it concluded he had dominated things by dropping Salido four times.

Garcia was methodical early but did enough late to continue his ascent and potentially move closer to an eventual fight with Manny Pacquiao within the next year. Pacquiao will first fight Timothy Bradley on April 12 for the WBO welterweight title.

However, before he could get a date with Pacquiao, Garcia may fight Yuriorkis Gamboa. Gamboa was sitting ringside with promoter 50 cent and some were chanting his name during lulls in the action.

'He has a lot of ability,' said Burgos. 'He's fast and strong. Luck was not with us today.'

On the undercard, Bryant Jennings (18-0) recorded his 10th knockout in the 10th round, beating Poland's Artur Szpilka (16-1) in a non-championship heavyweight bout.

Jennings had the faster hands throughout but could not come close to ending the fight until the final round. He nearly finished the fight with a little over a minute left in the final round by landing a hard left hook but the fight continued for another 30 seconds.

It ended when Jennings landed an even harder left shot that hit Szpilka across the face, forcing him to cling to the ropes and prompting referee Mike Ortega to stop the fight.